David's Greatest Need

Sermon Notes

David’s Greatest Need

Steve W. Reeves

INTRODUCTION:

A.  We have seen the headlines. A well-known person becomes involved in an immoral relationship. It

    may be an entertainer, a political leader or even a spiritual leader. There is the sensationalism of

    scandal. The media feasts on every lurid detail. Critics have a hey-day. Pundits pounce. Tongues

    wag, Human nature has not changed in the past 3000 years.

B. I invite you to travel with me back in time to a warm evening in the city of Jerusalem.

    1. Many versions say it was the spring of the year. Other versions, (KJV) do not mention the

       season but simply say it was  the “time when kings go forth to battle.”

    2. For King David of Israel it was a season of prosperity. David had paid his dues.

       a. He could recall the victories of his youth when he killed the lion and the bear. He remembered

           the battle with Goliath and how he had killed the Philistine giant. He could recall the praise he

           received from the people of Israel as they applauded his efforts with songs of praise.

       b. Also in David’s mind were the difficult days of fleeing from Saul’s wrath and living in isolation.     

       c. Now, following the deaths of Saul and Jonathan, David had consolidated his power and had

           moved his throne from Hebron to Jerusalem

       d. Little did David realize that he was about to fight the fiercest battle of his life.

C. A person may endure hardships, attacks, isolation, jealousy and rage. They may stand firm against

    a multitude of enemies and be vulnerable to the most deceptive of all threat - the threat of an

    unrestrained heart.

    1. David was at ease. His life was filled with prosperity, leisure and luxury.

    2. The heart of a fighter no longer beat within him. When his armies went out David stayed in. As

       they pursued enemies he pursued comfort. In the words of an old saying, “An idle mind is the

       Devil’s workshop.”

D. David takes a nighttime stroll on a flat roof. He enjoyed the cool of the evening. He surveyed his

    kingdom. As the final rays of the sun disappeared from the horizon we can only speculate as to

    what he was thinking. Whatever the state of his mind Satan saw a vulnerability and exploited it.

    1. David saw a woman bathing. There are so many questions.

       a. Why was she bathing on the roof where she could be seen? Was she being immodest?

       b. Was this the accepted practice of the day? Roofs of houses were used for a variety of

           utilitarian purposes from cooking to washing and drying clothes but to bathe in public seems

           odd to us. There are so many things about this situation we do not know. Perhaps the roof of

           her home was higher than all of those surrounding it and she felt safe, never imagining that the

           king would be looking down at her from the only structure that was higher? We do not know.

    2. We do know that David saw her and had to make a choice. When he was tempted he should

       have turned away.

       a. It is easy to say whet we should do when we are tempted. It is very difficult to do it.

       b. Robert Schuller often told a story about looking out on Niagara falls one March. The river was

           thawing after the hard winter freeze and large chunks of ice were floating down river and

           plummeting off the falls. Birds would land on these chunks of ice in search of fish. Schuller

           described how he watched one bird land on a piece of ice. It stayed too long. Its feet froze to

           the ice and as it sensed the danger it began flapping its wings to fly off but it could not. It went

           over the falls to its death.

       c. If we could only turn away from the first sign of temptation. Like David, however, we often stay

           too long with disastrous results. Deitrich Bonhoffer wrote, “In our members there is the

           smoldering inclination toward desire which is both sudden and fierce. With irresistible power

           desire seizes mastery over the flesh. … At this moment God is quite unreal to us. Satan does

           not fill us with hatred toward God but with forgetfulness of God.”

       d. Ultimately this man who had conquered kingdoms was overcome by his own passion.

           1. He asked about the identity of the woman. Her name was Bathsheba.

           2. She was the wife of Uriah the Hittite.

               a. Uriah was not an obscure, common foot soldier unknown to David.

               b. His name means, "flame of Yahweh" or "my light is Yahweh";

               c. He was one of thirty commanders in the army of Israel. He was a skilled warrior,

                   completely devoted to David. He had risked his life for David. He also loved his wife.

    3. Even with this knowledge David summoned Bathsheba and committed adultery. Who knew?

       Notice verse 27. “But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord.” God saw.

       a. God will judge our actions.

       b. There may be no one else around but God sees and we are accountable to Him.

E. Bathsheba returned home but the story is only beginning. She soon discovered she was pregnant

    and sent a message to the king.

    1. Once again David faced a decision. He could own up to His sin, confess it and take

       responsibility for the child or he could try to cover up the situation.

    2. In the 1972 presidential campaign a couple of thieves tried to slip into the headquarters of the

       Democratic National Headquarters located in an office complex known as Watergate. It was a

       bungled burglary. The thieves were caught. Had it been acknowledged by the proper sources

       and justice administered it would have been a footnote of history. Instead there was a cover up

       which led all the way to the President’s office and eventually forced the resignation of President

       Nixon in August of 1974.

    3. David sought to cover up his sin. He sent for Uriah and welcomed him under the pretext of

       wanting to know how the battle was  progressing. Then, in a sly move he told Uriah to go home

       and spend some time with his wife. You could not write a modern soap opera with a more

       treacherous and lurid plot!

    4. Uriah was a righteous and faithful man. He refused to go home to his wife while his fellow

       soldiers  were on the battlefield. Even when David gave him wine to dull his senses David’s plan

       failed. Uriah was more righteous in his drunkenness than David was sober.    

C. David did the unthinkable.

    1. He had Uriah carry a secret message to the commander Joab. Uriah was carrying his own death

       warrant and did not know it.

    2. 2 Samuel 11:15 - “Place Uriah in the front line of the fiercest battle and withdraw from him, so

       that he may be struck down and die.”

    3. In a matter of weeks David, a man after God’s own heart, had broken 40 percent of the Ten

       Commandments.  

       a. “You shall not covet.”

       b. “You shall not commit adultery.”

       c. “You shall not bear false witness.”

       d. “You shall not murder.”

    4. David messed up!  Big Time!

       a. We have seen how Saul disobeyed God by refusing to do what God commanded.

       b. Even Saul never did anything like this.

       c. This threatened David’s kingdom. Most importantly it threatened his relationship with God.

D. This is the point at which we inject ourselves into this story. All of us have messed up too.

    1. You may not have done what David did but somewhere in life you have messed up.

    2. What did David need at this point? What do you and I need when we mess up our lives?

I. HONESTY

    A. For months David subdued his conscience. I suspect that there was never a day in which the

       thing he had done did not surface in his mind.       

       1. In his kingdom was a prophet named Nathan.

       2. David had spoken to Nathan earlier in 2 Samuel 7. He had expressed his desire to build a

           temple for the Lord but Nathan told him God would not permit him to do so.

       3. Nathan was not an adversary. He was a friend who would be honest with David.

    B. Nathan knew David well enough to appeal to his heart.

       1. In 2 Samuel 12:1-4 Nathan told David a parable that is now familiar to us.

       2. It is one of very few parables mentioned in the Old Testament.

       3. It was the story of a poor man with one little lamb and a rich man with vast herds of sheep.

           When a visitor came to the rich man’s house, hospitality dictated the preparation of a meal.

           Rather than taking from his own vast flocks he took the poor man’s one lamb and had it

           slaughtered and served.

       4. God has always used stories to convict his people. Si Tilton sent me this quote last week. It

           comes from Leslie Silko, a Pueblo writer. In one of her novels she describes a Pueblo elder

           talking about the importance of stories to their culture and the danger of removing those

           stories. “I will tell you something about stories. They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled

           They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. You don't have

           anything if you don't have stories. Their evil is mighty but it can't stand up to our stories. So

           they try to destroy our stories, let the stories be confused or forgotten. They would like that.

           They would be happy because we would be defenseless then..."

       5. After months of living under the burden of sin God broke through David’s heart with a story.

    C. When David heard this story he was angry. He said that the man who had done this deserved to

       die.  He quoted the requirement of Exodus 22:1 that required a four-fold restitution.

       1. Nathan looked at David eye to eye.

       2. David Roper suggests two ways of picturing Nathan. One as a stern prophet with eyes blazing,

           arms outstretched, declaring judgment. The other as a broken hearted friend longing for

           David’s repentance.

       3. Nathan was completely truthful. He didn’t sidestep the issue. He said, “You are the man.”

           a. Some people will tell you what they think you want to hear.

           b. When Harry Truman became President he was visited by Sam Rayburn, speaker of the

               House of Representatives. He said, “Harry, now that you’re president. People will tell you

               how great you are and how brilliant you are and what a great man you are. But Harry – you

               and I both know it ain’t so.”

       4. Nathan did not compromise. He had the courage to tell the king the truth.

    D. You and I must have convictions. We must have convictions about scripture, salvation, morality,

       marriage, worship and the church. We must be honest enough to maintain those convictions and

       share them with others.

II. HUMILITY.

    A. There are many ways David could have responded to Nathan.

       1. He could have tried to ignore him.

           a. David had been covering up his sin for months hoping it would go away. He was like the

               person who needed to have surgery but instead had his x-rays touched up to hide the

               problem.

           b. Many people try to ignore sin. They stay busy, surround themselves with distractions  and

               try to mask the pain with artificial means.

       2. David could have become angry with Nathan.

           a. If you don’t like the message shoot the messenger.

           b. I’ve had people become angry over a few things I’ve said through the years.

           c. He could have had Nathan imprisoned or killed. There were kings who did this when they

               didn’t like what a prophet said. An example is Ahab and Micaiah in 1 Kings 22.

       3. He could have made excuses. “It is Bathsheba’s fault.” “If Uriah would have obeyed my

           command he would still be alive.” “The pressures of this position are so great. I needed an

           outlet.”

    B. Thankfully, David had the right attitude.

       1. 2 Samuel 12:13 – “Then David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’”

        2. David had a heart that could be broken.  

III. HOPE

    A. David had seen the tragedy of his predecessor, King Saul.

       1. He had witnessed the downward spiral of Saul’s spiritual life.

       2. He did not want to suffer the same experience.

       3. In response to Nathan’s honesty David confessed in vs. 13, “I have sinned against the Lord.”

    B. We have a unique perspective on David’s contrite heart as we read from the Psalms he wrote.

       1. Psalm 32:1-5 – “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!
               ² How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there  

           is no deceit! ³ When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through my groaning all

           day long. ⁴ For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as

           with the fever heat of summer. ⁵ I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I did not hide;
            I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord”; And You forgave the guilt of my sin.”

       2. Psalm 51:1-4 – “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the

           greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. ² Wash me thoroughly from my  

           iniquity And cleanse me from my sin. ³ For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever

           before me.⁴ Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight,So that

           You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.”

       3. Psalm 51:10-12 - Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. 

           ¹¹ Do not cast me away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore

           to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit.”

    C. David longed for a renewal of hope and God did not disappoint him. Nathan assured him in

       verse 13 – “The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.”

       1. Think of some of the great characters in the Bible such as Abraham, Moses, Samson, David,

           Solomon and Peter. What did they have in common? Great faith – yes! But, all of them had

           great failures too. Abraham lied, Moses did not fully obey, Samson allowed lust to ruin his life,

           David and Solomon allowed themselves to be turned away from God, Peter denied Christ. All

           of them received forgiveness.

       2. There is no sin too severe for God to forgive when we seek Him.        

IV. HELP

    A. Too often when people have fallen into sin we do not do a good job of standing beside them in

       the days, months, weeks and years to follow. We forget that forgiveness of sins does not

       eliminate the consequences that sin may bring into a person’s life.

    B. Nathan told David there were going to be serious consequences. Beginning in verse 7 through

       verse 12:

Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. ⁸ I also gave you your master’s house and your master’s wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these! ⁹ Why have you despised the word of the Lord by doing evil in His sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the sons of Ammon. ¹⁰ Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’ ¹¹ Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight. ¹² Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.’”

    C. Four sons of David died. The infant born to Bathsheba died. Amnon was killed by Absolom.

       Absalom was later killed  by Joab (2 Samuel 18:14). Adonijah was killed by order of Solomon in 1

       Kings 2.

       1. If you go to 1 Kings 1 which describes the time immediately before David’s death guess who

           you find? Nathan the prophet is still ministering to the house of David.

       2. Through all of the tumult and upheaval of David’s final years Nathan stayed close by.

    D. When people have sinned they need our help more than ever. We do not need to pull away from

       them. We need to surround them and bless them.      

CONCLUSION:

A. What was the difference between David and Saul? Both had great victories and both had terrible

    failures. Ultimately it came down to the condition of their hearts. Saul’s heart remained hard.

    David’s heart was broken.

B. I hope this story from David’s life causes us to reflect upon the condition of our hearts.